NINETEENTH

Autograph Card Signed to unnamed male correspondent [the headmaster of Harrow School?].

Author: 
Anna Swanwick (1813-1899), English author, translator and social reformer [Reginald Bosworth Smith (1839-1908), Housemaster of Harrow School]
Publication details: 
20 March [no year, but after 1892]; on letterhead of 23 Cumberland Terrace, Regents Park, N.W.
£75.00

On both sides of the gilt-edged card, which is roughly 9 x 11.5 cm. Aged, but in fair condition. 'Mr Bosworth Smith' has informed her that her book 'Poets the Interpreters of Their Age' (1892) 'will be acceptable to the pupils of Harrow School', and she has 'great pleasure in presenting a copy to your library, & hoping that a kind welcome will be accorded to my little offering'. A postscript explains that the volume 'will be forwarded by an early post'.

Autograph Letter Signed ('Helen Mathers. | (Helen Reeves)') to unnamed male correspondent.

Author: 
Helen Mathers' [pen name of Ellen Buckingham Mathews (1853-1920); Helen Reeves; Mrs. Reeves], English popular novelist
Publication details: 
1 December 1879; on letterhead of 6 Grosvenor Street, [London] W.
£125.00

12mo, 3 pp. Bifolium. Spike hole through both leaves, not affecting text. Fair, on aged paper. She states that 'The story would be ready to commence the 2nd. week in March.' She then gives a list of her five 'other works besides Comin' thro the Rye'. The first two in the list are said to have passed through '3 editions', and of the second in the list 'a further is in preparation'.

Autograph Note Signed ('Gilbert Parker.') to 'Mr Anderson'.

Author: 
Sir Gilbert Parker [Sir Horatio Gilbert George Parker] (1862-1932), Canadian novelist and British politician [early cinema]
Publication details: 
5 April 1922; on letterhead of 24 Portman Square, [London] W.1.
£28.00

4to, 1 p. On aged, worn paper with small area of loss at head (not affecting text). He will be 'pleased to act on the Committee to judge of the stories for filming', and is glad that 'the work will not be onerous'. In a postscript gives the version of his name he wishes given for announcing ('Right Hon. Sir Gilbert Parker Bt.'). According to his entry in the Oxford DNB, no fewer than sixteen of Parker's novels were filmed. As head of British propaganda in America, 1914-1916, Parker had a direct involvement with the medium.

Autograph Letter Signed ('Henry Norman') to unnamed male correspondent.

Author: 
Sir Henry Norman (1858-1939), English journalist and Liberal politician (as editor of the Daily Chronicle) [Maurice Maeterlinck]
Publication details: 
22 March 1895; on letterhead of The Daily Chronicle, 12 Salisbury Square, Fleet Street.
£28.00

12mo, 1 p. Fair, on aged and lightly-creased paper. Blank second leaf of bifolium bearing traces of previous mount. He is obligedfor the 'kind invitation to meet Maeterlinck. It will give me great pleasure to lunch with you at the National Liberal Club on Tuesday at 12.30.'

Autograph Letter Signed ('E. Watkin.') to the Rev. Edward Price.

Author: 
Sir Edward Watkin [Sir Edward William Watkin] (1819-1901) of Northenden, Victorian railway entrepreneur and politician
Publication details: 
31 October 1885; Northenden.
£75.00

12mo, 2 pp. On first leaf of a bifolium. Text clear and complete. On slightly grubby, aged and lightly-creased paper. As they are '[i]n the midst of the Elections, which we shall not finally get rid of till, perhaps, the middle of December', he is 'quite unable' to do as Price wishes. 'I could not condense what ought to be condensed, without a good deal of reference & reading taking time - which is scarcest of articles with me, at the moment'. The subject of recent biographies by J. N. Greaves ('The Last of the Railway Kings', 2008) and D. J.

Four copies (on white, blue, pink and yellow paper) of a printed handbill titled 'Copy of a Letter from S. F. a Member of the Society of Friends, to a Young Woman, a Short Time before her Marriage.'

Author: 
S. F.' [Society of Friends; Quakers; Victorian women; nineteenth-century marriage]
Publication details: 
Undated [1840s?], and without publication details [English].
£225.00

Each copy is identically printed, on a piece of paper roughly 22.5 x 19.5 cm. Title and 56 lines of text (ending 'S. F.'), within a decorative border. Three of the four have a lightly-embossed stationery crown mark in a top corner. All four with text clear and complete, and in good condition, on lightly-aged and creased paper. Begins 'HAVING heard thou art shortly to enter a garden enclosed, and knowing thou art at present a stranger to this garden, permit an old friend to give thee an account of it.

Printed handbill on green paper titled 'Copy of a Letter from S. F. a Member of the Society of Friends, to a Young Woman, a Short Time before her Marriage.'

Author: 
S. F.' [Society of Friends; Quakers; Victorian women; nineteenth-century marriage]
Publication details: 
Undated [1840s?], and without publication details [English].
£56.00

On a piece of green paper roughly 22.5 x 19.5 cm. Title and 56 lines of text (ending 'S. F.'), within a decorative border. Lightly-embossed stationery crown mark in top left-hand corner. Text clear and complete. In good condition, on lightly-aged paper with creasing to bottom righ-hand margin. Begins 'HAVING heard thou art shortly to enter a garden enclosed, and knowing thou art at present a stranger to this garden, permit an old friend to give thee an account of it. I have travelled every path and part thereof, and know the productions of every kind, it can possibly yield.

Autograph Letter Signed ('Roundell Palmer') to Sedgwick, mainly on the subject of the Walton Convalescent Institution.

Author: 
Roundell Palmer (1812-1895), 1st Earl of Selborne, Lord Chancellor [Daniel Sedgwick (1814-1879), hymnologist; Walton Convalescent Institution]
Publication details: 
4 August 1866; 6 Portland Place [London].
£45.00

12mo, 3 pp. Bifolium. Fair, on aged and lightly-creased paper. He would have answered Sedgwick's letter punctually, had he been able to help him. 'But I have not only no notes for the Walton Convalescent Institution of my own available, but I have been (before your application) desirous of obtaining one for a young man known to me personally, and have not (as yet) succeeded in the object.' He hopes to send him 'a letter about hymns in the course of this autumn'. [Palmer edited a selection.]

Printed handbill proposing the establishment of the Blamire Memorial. With five Autograph Letters Signed (by the peers Cleveland, Devonshire, Feversham, Lonsdale, Spencer) to Howard on the same subject.

Author: 
Philip Henry Howard (1801-1883), M.P. for Carlisle [William Blamire (1790-1862) of Thackwood Nook, Whig M.P. for Cumberland; Blamire Memorial; Cleveland; Devonshire; Feversham; Lonsdale; Spencer]
Publication details: 
All six items dating from 1862.
£180.00

An interesting collection, with some revealing comments within the correspondence. All six items are laid down on a folio leaf of pink paper removed from an autograph album. All clear and complete, in good condition on aged paper, with the Feversham letter somewhat grubby. The handbill (12mo, 1 p), on behalf of the Committee for the Blamire Memorial, and in the names of Henry Londsdale and Henry Dobinson, is headed 'BLAMIRE MEMORIAL', and dated 'Carlisle, Oct. 7th, 1862.' It reports the resolutions of a meeting held on 4 October 1862.

Autograph Signature ('Walter Runciman').

Author: 
Walter Runciman (1870-1949), 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford, English Liberal politician
Publication details: 
6 March 1911. On Board of Education card.
£20.00

On a piece of card roughly 9 x 11.5 cm. With embossed government crest of the Board of Education in the top left-hand corner. In fair condition, lightly-aged and with small triangular areas of discoloration to two opposing corners caused by previous mounting. Good bold signature, presumably sent in response to a request for an autograph. Reads '[signed] Walter Runciman. | 6 March | 1911.'

List of the Annual Volumes of the Ray Society. From their Commencement, in 1844, to December, 1901.

Author: 
The Ray Society [John Ray; natural history]
Publication details: 
[1901?] Printed by Adlard and Son, Bartholomew Close, E.C.; 20, Hanover Square, W. and Dorking.
£28.00

8vo: 16 pp. Stapled pamphlet. Nothing other than the title printed on the first leaf. Text paginated [19] to 31, with publisher's slug on reverse of last leaf. On aged and creased paper, with 6 cm closed tear at central crease of outer bifolium. No copies of this title on COPAC or WorldCat.

Autograph Letter Signed to Mrs R<?> Harvey.

Author: 
Robert Harkness (1816-1878), English geologist
Publication details: 
29 January 1869; on letterhead of Queen's College, Cork.
£28.00

12mo, 1 p. Fair, on lightly-aged paper, with slight damage to one corner from removal from mounting, small glue stains from which are evident on the reverse. She was prevented from obtaining his autograph 'during the Meeting of the British Association at Norwich', and he is sending it to her now.

Autograph Letter Signed ('C J Mathews') to Hollingshead.

Author: 
C. J. Mathews [Charles James Mathews] (1803-1878), son of Charles Mathews, English actor and playwright [John Hollingshead (1827-1904), English journalist and theatre manager]
Publication details: 
23 November 1865; 25 Pelham Crescent, London.
£38.00

12mo, 1 p. Fair, on aged paper, with traces of previous mount adhering to the corners of the blank reverse. Of course Hollingshead should 'wait till the last night of "used up" ' before writing to Mathews, who has 'hunted up Buckstone - hunted up Turpin - but in vain. Not a box to be had'. He has sent 'the best I could get': '3 Dress Circle to Mrs Smiles with "Mr Hollingshead's best compliments." '. In a postscript states that if Hollingshead wants 'a box for the "Overland Route" before the last night' he will be 'too happy'. 'There is always a run on last nights.'

Autograph Letter Signed ('G Agar Ellis') to Jerdan, with seal.

Author: 
George Agar-Ellis [George James Welbore Agar-Ellis, 1st Baron Dover] (1797-1833), politician and patron of the arts [William Jerdan (1782-1869), editor of the Literary Gazette; Sir Henry Halford]
Publication details: 
22 May 1827; Spring Gardens [London].
£38.00

12mo, 1 p. In a bifolium, addressed and docketed on the reverse of the second leaf, to which the red wax seal adheres, in good condition with a clear impression of Agar-Ellis's monogram. Fair, on aged and grubby paper. If Jerdan has 'quite done' with Agar-Ellis's copy of 'G<?>'s improvements of London' asks if he will allow Agar-Ellis's 'messanger' to return it. 'If however you still wish to keep it, pray do.' Agar-Ellis has 'promised to lend it to Sir H Halford'.

Autograph Signature ('Maurice OConnell').

Author: 
Sir Maurice O'Connell [Sir Maurice Charles O'Connell] (1812-1879), Irish soldier, administrator, and politician in Australia [Daniel O'Connell]
Publication details: 
Date and place not stated.
£23.00

On a piece of paper, 2 x 8 cm, cut from a letter. Neatly laid down on a piece of paper, 4 x 9 cm. Good, on aged paper. The signature reads 'Maurice OConnell'. In a contemporary hand, on the mount, 'Maurice O'Connell. MP. | (nephew of King Dan)'. According to the Oxford DNB, Daniel O'Connell ('The Liberator') was a cousin of Maurice's father Sir Maurice Charles Philip O'Connell (1768-1848).

Autograph Note Signed ('Eleanor M Sidgwick') to 'Miss Chittenden, Cambridge Training Corps, Wollaston Road, Cambridge'.

Author: 
Eleanor Mildred Sidgwick [née Balfour] (1845-1936), Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge
Publication details: 
16 August 1907; on letterhead of Newnham College, Cambridge.
£28.00

16mo, 1 p. In a bifolium. Seven lines. Clear and complete. Good, on lightly-aged paper. In stamped, addressed envelope. Asks if Chittenden will 'come to luncheon' on one of the two following days, as Sidgwick 'hardly saw' her on the previous day.

Frank, with signature ('J Lawrence'), seal, and autograph address to Northcote

Author: 
John Laird Mair Lawrence (1811-1879), 1st Baron Lawrence, Viceroy of India from 1864 to 1869 [Sir Stafford Northcote]
Publication details: 
Date and place not stated.
£23.00

Cut from an envelope into a 'T' shape, with the front panel bearing the address and signature roughly 8.5 x 22.5 cm, forming the cross stroke, and the area from the back of the letter bearing the seal, cut into a roughly 6.5 x 5.5 cm rectangle, hanging down from this like the vertical stroke of the letter. Good, on lightly aged and creased paper. Reads 'To the Right Honorable, | Sir Stafford Northcote, Bart | Secretary of State for India | London | J Lawrence'. The circular red wax seal is 3.5 cm in diameter.

Autograph Letter Signed ('Adolphus') concerning the newly-completed St Mary's Hospital, Paddington.

Author: 
Prince Adolphus Frederick (1774-1850), Duke of Cambridge, son of King George III [St Mary's Hospital, Paddington]
Publication details: 
15 March 1850; Cambridge House.
£35.00

12mo, 3 pp. Good, on lightly-aged paper, with a little damage to the four corners of the second leaf caused by removal from mount. Thirty-five lines of text. Clear and complete. He has been afforded 'very great satisfaction' by the announcement that the Hospital 'is now so nearly completed' that it will 'a few weeks hence be delivered into the possession and management of the Governors'. It is a 'new, capacious and very necessary addition to our metropolitan Hospitals'.

Part of Autograph Letter, with signature ('James Wilson').

Author: 
James Wilson (1805-1860), Scottish economist and politician
Publication details: 
Place and date not stated.
£23.00

On one side of a piece of wove paper, roughly 5 x 18.5 cm, cut from letter by an autograph collector. Aged, and with staining from the glue used in mounting. Reads '<...> upon it. | I hope you are quite recovered. | Yours trly | James Wilson'.

Autograph Signature on part of document

Author: 
Sir Charles Yorke (1790-1880), General in the British Army
Publication details: 
Date and place not stated.
£28.00

A piece of laid paper, roughly 8 x 20 cm, cut from a document by an autograph collector. Yorke's signature, large (4.5 x 7 cm) and bold, is in the bottom right-hand corner. The surviving text is in a secretary's hand, and reads: '<...> of Our Reign. | By His Majesty's Command. | C Yorke | Our Trusty and Wellbeloved William Gordon Esqr General in Our Army & Col of Our 71st (Highland) Regiment of Foot or to the Officer appointed by him to raise Men for Our said Regiment'.

Engraved copperplate Certificate, completed in manuscript and signed by E. Gilbert Highton, with a long 'Private note' by him, notifying Williamson of his election to Fellowship in the Royal Society of Literature.

Author: 
Edward Gilbert Highton, Fellow and Secretary, Royal Society of Literature [George Charles Williamson (1858-1942), writer on art and historian of Guildford; George Bell & Sons]
Publication details: 
3 January 1890, on letterhead of the Royal Society of Literature.
£28.00

4to bifolium (leaf dimensions 26 x 20.5 cm). The notification certificate is on the recto of the first leaf, and Highton's letter is on the recto of the second. Versos of both leaves blank. Good, on lightly aged and creased paper, with 5 cm closed tear to margin of second leaf caused by removal of letter from stub, traces of which still adhere to the verso of the second leaf. The certificate is tastefully printed in black, with the Society's crest in red in the top left-hand corner.

Autograph Note [to Jerdan?].

Author: 
Barry Cornwall' [Bryan Waller Procter (1787-1874)], English poet and friend of Charles Lamb [William Jerdan, editor of the Literary Gazette]
Publication details: 
Date and place not stated [London; circa 1820?].
£38.00

On upper half of a piece of quarto paper, unevenly torn to make a piece roughly 11 x 18.5 cm. Fair: on aged paper. Part of address from previous letter to 'W. Jerdan <...> | 267 Strand <...>' on reverse, which is docketed 'Procter | Miss Proby | Cornwalls poems'. Reads 'I inclose you a note left here for you | George says he will review the book for you next week - in the meantime give a flourish in your notice - 'The time does not admit of doing just to the vol. &c &c We are all a Party in this success -'.

Manuscript notebook, titled 'Anecdotes &c.', containing several hundred humorous stories (transcribed and 'Related'), with a few newspaper and magazine cuttings.

Author: 
Victorian notebook filled with humorous anecdotes [A. S. S. Sidney, Wobaston House, Wolverhampton; nineteenth-century English social history; jokes; humour]
Publication details: 
English. Dated between 1866 and 1911.
£150.00

Quarto (leaf dimensions roughly 19.5 x 15.5 cm). Ruled with twenty-eight lines to the page. Written in a close, neat hand, covering the first ninety-one pages of the notebook. Loosely inserted are twelve pages containing a further thirty stories, on three bifoliums each headed 'Anecdotes &c'. In black-leather half-binding, marbled boards. Good and tight, with text clear and complete on lightly aged paper. Calligraphic design printed on front free endpaper. A charming collection, casting amusing and entertaining light on nineteenth-century English social history.

Autograph Letter Signed ('N Card. Wiseman'), in French, to 'Mons Castermann, Editeur, Tournai'.

Author: 
Cardinal Wiseman [Nicholas Patrick Stephen Wiseman] (1802-1865)
Publication details: 
16 August 1856; Brussells.
£56.00

12mo: 1 p. On the recto of the first leaf of a bifolium, with the address, with postmark, on the reverse of the second. On brittle, aged paper. The letter has been neatly folded three times, and there are a few closed tears along the crease lines, including one through the initial 'N' of the signature. Wiseman thanks Castermann for the copy he has sent of 'votre nouvelle édition en Français de "Fabiola". Not only is the 'execution typographique de l'ouvrage' deserving of his praise, but also the translation, which leaves nothing to be desired.

Manuscript and Printed Marriage Certificate on parchment, signed by thirty individuals.

Author: 
Eli Nixon; James Child [The Quakers; Bethnal Green]
Publication details: 
Wandsworth; 16 June 1825.
£95.00

Dimensions roughly nineteen inches by thirteen inches. Aged and a tad grubby, but in very good condition overall. Small piece, roughly one inch square, cut away from bottom left hand corner. Government five shilling stamp in top left-hand corner.

Excerpta Cantiana; Being the Prospectus of a History of Kent, Preparing for Publication by the Rev. Thomas Streatfeild, F.S.A.'; with two other prospectuses of the same; four prospectuses for Toovey's 'History of Kent'; Autograph Letters Signed.

Author: 
Thomas Streatfeild (1777-1848) [William Nicol, Shakspeare Press; James Toovey; F. C. Brooke; T. G. Godfrey Tempest]
Publication details: 
Excerpta Cantiana' (dated 'Chart's Edge, Westerham, 1 January, 1836'): London: William Nicol, Shakspeare Press, Pall Mall. [1836.] 'History of Kent': London, James Toovey, 177, Piccadilly. [1871].
£250.00

The collection in a contemporary green leather quarter-binding, with grey paper boards and title in gilt on spine. Good, in heavily worn binding splitting at rear hinge. The letters are expertly mounted on leaves in the volume. 'Excerpta Cantiana': folio: 23 pp of letterpress, with illustrations and with three full-page engravings by J. S. Agar and one fold-out pedigree. PRESENTATION COPY from Streatfeild to the antiquary and historian Charles James Palmer of Great Yarmouth.

Autograph Letter Signed ('W Edmondstoun de Aytoun') to James Simpson.

Author: 
William Edmonstoune Aytoun [William Edmondstoun de Aytoun] (1813-1865), Scottish poet
Publication details: 
26 January 1865; 16 Great Stuart Street, Edinburgh.
£280.00

12mo, 3 pp. Bifolium. Twenty-eight lines. Text clear and complete. Good, on lightly-aged paper, with evidence of previous mount on reverse of second leaf. Certainly genuine, and of interest as bearing a variant spelling of Aytoun's name in a signature written from his home a few months before his death. (The spelling 'Edmondstoun de Aytoun' is not noted in Aytoun's entry in the Oxford DNB.) In the latter part of the letter Aytoun comments on his poetic practice. He is 'much flattered' by Simpson's 'selection of my poem for a public reading', and is 'glad to hear that it was appreciated'.

Presentation of a Great Mace to the City of Manchester.

Author: 
[The Manchester Corporation Insignia Committee; Albert Nicholson; George Falkner & Sons, printers; Elkington & Co., Ltd, electroplaters, Birmingham]
Publication details: 
Manchester & London: Geo: Falkner & Sons. 1895. [Limited to 250 copies, 'Printed for Private Circulation.]
£250.00

Two copies: one a revised proof, the other out-of-series, with manuscript additions to the list of subscribers. Both copies 8vo, 25 pp, in original grey printed wraps. Both copies internally tight and clean, in grubby wraps. Attractively printed on thick laid paper, with the wraps printed in red and black. Pp.7-9 of the proof have been deleted, with the manuscript instruction, p.7: 'Take out this & the passages marked on next two pages & insert MS. sent'.

Lithographed document entitled 'Estimate For the Erection of Proposed New Isolation Hospital at Leavesden Asylum, near Watford, Herts, for the Managers of the Metropolitan Asylum District.'

Author: 
Captain C. E. Dance, R.E.R., Surveyor to the Board [Metropolitan Asylums Board; Leavesden Asylum]
Publication details: 
September 1902. Rich & Co. Electrographers & Lithographers, 12 Furnival St. E.C.
£100.00

Unbound and stapled. Sixty-four pages. Dimensions of leaf roughly thirteen inches by eight wide. Lithographed facsimile handwriting throughout. Aged and with some wear to extremities, but text clear and entire. 'Clerk of Writ Copy' in red ink manuscript at head of first page. An interesting and informative document, compiled on behalf of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, giving in detail the specifications for builders tendering for the contract for the erection of the new hospital.

The Sans Pareil; or, Curiosities of Literature, no. 1, 17 March 1832. with Prospectus (Handbill).

Author: 
[Nineteenth-Century Periodical, Prospectus and Issue]
Publication details: 
Printed (for the Editor) by G. Smeeton, 74 Tooley Street; and sold also by Strange, Paternoster Row, and Purkiss Wardour Street, Soho., 17 March 1832
£200.00

Four pages, 8vo, good condition. Price one farthing. It includes an obituary of William Roscoe, a facsimile of the playbill "in which the late Mrs Siddons was announced to sing!", notes on "The Arts", "Metropolitan Weekly Return" (including "Seduced females 1000"), and "Stocks" ("Impudence, open . . . Merit, shut").. With the Prospectus , c. 8 x 7ins., headed "The Cheapest Periodical in the World" and listing contents as above and printing information as above, anticipating its eight columns and price.

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